The Mercuro Event Industry Interview Series: Frank Supovitz on Crisis Management
Today, I am thrilled to present my recent interview with a remarkable man, associate and friend. We welcome award-winning event producer Frank Supovitz. Frank has been at the helm of some of the nation’s most prestigious, widely viewed and well-attended sports and entertainment events for more than 35 years. He founded Fast Traffic in 2014, an event management and consulting company based in New York. Current and recent clients include the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Major League Baseball, and New York City’s South Street Seaport. Frank served as Senior Vice President, Events for the National Football League from 2005 to 2014, and was the executive producer for the Super Bowl, Pro Bowl, and the NFL Draft. He led the National Hockey League’s Events & Entertainment department from 1992 to 2005, managing and producing the NHL’s All-Star Weekend, the Stanley Cup Finals, the NHL Awards Television Special, and international competitions in Canada, Europe, and Japan. Together with the Edmonton Oilers, Frank developed the NHL Heritage Classic in 2003, the first stadium-based outdoor pro hockey game and forerunner of the spectacularly successful NHL Winter Classic. Frank previously served as director of special events for Radio City Music Hall Productions.
It can honestly be said that Frank Supovitz wrote the book on managing and marketing live sports events. He is the co-author of The Sports Event Management & Marketing Playbook, 3rd edition (2024), a professional/academic textbook first published by Wiley in 2004. He also wrote What to Do When Things Go Wrong, a non-fiction title on crisis management published by McGraw-Hill (2019). Frank received an honorary Doctor of Business Administration degree in Sports, Entertainment & Event Management from Johnson & Wales University in 2003 and was inducted into the Event Industry Hall of Fame in 2006. In 2014, he was honored as New York University’s Cal Ramsey Distinguished Lecturer and is currently an adjunct professor at Adelphi University in Garden City, NY. Frank appeared as a featured character on NFL Full Contact, a six-episode unscripted series on truTV (2010), in 60 Minutes Sports’ behind-the-scenes episode on Super Bowl XLVII on Showtime (2013) and appeared in a cameo role in the Ivan Reitman-directed film Draft Day (2014).
AM: What inspired you to write "What to Do When Things Go Wrong"?
FS: I had been asked by BizBash Magazine to speak at their annual conference about the time I left the NFL in 2014. Since I was going off to do something different, I wanted the presentation to be different, too. When I thought about all the speeches I had listened to, or that I had given, they all revolved around the speakers’ success stories. I thought that, instead, I’d give a speech about all the things that had gone wrong for me over the years and what I learned from the tons of mistakes I made over my career. It was a bit cathartic, but it was an audience that could clearly relate because we’ve all been there. Afterwards, I started getting more and more requests to give similar presentations from ILEA chapters, IFEA chapters, conferences, corporations, and clients. At a friendly lunch the author of The Billion Dollar Game, Allen St. John suggested that there might be a book in there somewhere.
AM: In your experience, what is the most common mistake people or businesses make when facing an unexpected crisis?
FS: Reacting too quickly, without considering the potential unintended consequences of your “in the heat of the moment” decisions is among the most common. Reacting is instinctive. We want to make the problem, and the stress it causes, go away as soon as possible. NASA’s flight director at the time of the Apollo 13 mission told his team to “take a beat, then work the problem.” What he was saying was: “Don’t react. Respond.” Responding is more reasoned and perhaps a bit better informed than reacting. It’s a bit like playing chess – consider the options, the next few steps, and the possible outcomes. If you react too quickly, without at least a moment of reflection, you’ll do the first thing that comes to mind, and you just might make the problem worse.
AM: Can you share one of the most challenging crises you've managed and how you navigated through it?
FS: Perhaps the most well-known, or at least the most well-documented, is the power failure shortly after halftime of Super Bowl XLVII. There are two reasons why I talk about it more often than other thorny problems our team was faced with. The pressure on us was enormous. First, 70,000 people were sitting in the stadium and 115 million people were watching nationwide. And second, a crew from 60 Minutes Sports was actively filming in our event command center when the building went dark. So, nothing that happened and nothing we did was going to be a secret for very long.
This is where responding, instead of reacting, comes into play. The first thing to deal with wasn’t getting the power turned back on. More importantly, we had to determine whether we had a safe or unsafe environment. If it was unsafe, we’d have to evacuate the building (assuming it wasn’t even more unsafe outside). If it was safe, we’d want people to hang out, and not to stream toward the exits. Communicating with the audience before they relied on social media to tell them what to do, or before panic set in, was the most important next step. We needed to tell them what they should do. Once we determined the problem was a shut-down of one of the two feeder cables into the building, we could tell the fans in the building that they should remain inside while the stadium could work on the fix. Then, once the lights came back on, instead of kicking off the ball right away, we took the time to check to make sure the technology infrastructure we needed for the game was rebooted and functional, from the referee’s instant replay system to the teams’ coach-to-quarterback systems. If we had re-started the game right away, some of those systems would not have been working correctly. Respond. Don’t react.
AM: You emphasize the importance of contingency planning. How far in advance should businesses prepare, and what should be included in a solid contingency plan?
FS: Contingency planning starts in parallel with mainstream planning. Often, your “Plan B” becomes your “Plan A” well before event day, when information and reflection identify vulnerabilities in your assumptions. You’ll need plans for the obvious and predictable possibilities, like inclement weather for outdoor events. Or tropical storms and blizzards that can affect travel to indoor events. But you should also have plans for the less likely challenges that would be highly impactful if they happened. Like the bankruptcy of a primary vendor, a labor stoppage, or damage to your host venue. Responses to wide-ranging challenges like these have a lot of commonality.
AM: What role does effective communication play in crisis management, and how can teams improve their communication strategies under pressure?
FS: We’ve already talked about the importance of communicating with your audience. When it comes to your team, they are both the early-warning system and the rapid response mechanism. If you have 20 people on your team, you have 20 sets of eyes who should feel empowered to elevate observations and concerns. It’s much like “see something, say something.” If any member of the team perceives a situation that can deteriorate, equipment that can fail, or an environment that may be unsafe, they must know they are authorized to either fix the problem before it gets worse or communicate to someone who can. Murphy’s first corollary is “Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.” Leaders can’t be everywhere, but your team is. Let’s fix problems before they become bigger problems. Communication goes in the other direction, too. If something is happening that will affect what your team is experiencing, or must respond to, let them know so they can respond, and avoid reacting.
AM: How do you personally stay calm and collected when things go wrong, especially during high-profile events like the Super Bowl?
FS: When something bad happens, we all feel that hollow feeling in the pit of our stomachs. We start to sweat, our heartbeat quickens, and we feel a bit anxious. That’s what humans do. It’s the involuntary release of adrenaline that makes us feel that way, and there is nothing we can do about that. But what we can do, is direct that energy to focusing on the problem, coming up with solutions, or figuring out how to manage it if it’s not solvable. Psychologists have proven that when we take that beat, redirect that energy, and concentrate on the issue, we mitigate the anxiety. Staying calm on the outside, at least, is critical because the whole team looks to the leaders to determine how they themselves should feel. If leadership seems under control, they can operate under control, too. And, of course, the opposite is true. Panic is also contagious.
AM: In the book, you discuss teamwork and collaboration. How can leaders foster a culture of teamwork before a crisis occurs, so teams are more effective during high stress moments?
FS: Let the team know that they are integral to managing crises before a crisis happens and identify for them what their responsibilities may be when things go wrong. One way to do this is with a “tabletop exercise.” Gather your team a week or so before a big event and simulate several possible challenge scenarios. Work together to solve them in real-time. You wouldn’t produce an “run-of-show” event without a rehearsal, or a technical run-through. This is a rehearsal on an operational level. The more complex an event is, the more helpful a tabletop can be. We conducted one before every Super Bowl I managed. We had a blended leadership team of experienced Super Bowl experts, local resources and law enforcement, and the host stadium’s leadership. The tabletops helped create a team that understood their respective roles, and the roles of the people around them. We never simulated a power failure. But, when the power failure hit us, our team went right back into problem-solving mode like they did the week before because they understood how we would manage tough situations. That’s another reason they could approach things more calmly.
AM: How has your approach to crisis management evolved over your career, and what lessons have had the biggest impact on your leadership style?
FS: I think the biggest lesson I’ve learned is that when something goes wrong, you’re not alone. Our teams are there to help us, to provide intelligence and guidance, and in some cases, they are more qualified to solve the problem than we are. Listen to the experts, empower them, give them the opportunity to play their part in the recovery, and in some cases, get out of their way. If we succeed, it’s a team effort.
AM: Finally, what do you hope readers will take away from "What to Do When Things Go Wrong"? How can the lessons in your book be applied to everyday life, beyond business?
FS: One of the key concepts in the book is that problems don’t follow patterns, but solutions often do. How you respond to a crisis, how you communicate with others, and how you manage the after-effects are as applicable in life as they are in business. That’s because we’re all project managers in one form or another. Either we’re managing events for others, or projects for ourselves – our kid’s wedding, volunteering for a fundraiser at our place of worship or a charity that’s meaningful to us, managing a home improvement project, or helping to manage a Scout camping trip. It’s easy to imagine something going wrong in each of those scenarios. The trick is to imagine it before it happens, so you’ll be prepared to respond when it does.
I would like to thank Frank Supovitz for his invaluable contribution to this interview process. To learn more about Frank, his background, his book "What to Do When Things Go Wrong" and his business Fast Traffic Events & Entertainment, please visit: https://fasttrafficevents.com.